Regarding Berserking and Blood Fury, also remember that we’re reducing the amount of cooldown stacking in the game, and more importantly, removing DoT snapshotting. That is effectively a significant nerf to Berserking and Blood Fury, since you'll no longer be able to extend their benefit long past their intended duration. We expect that these changes will bring Trolls and Orcs in line with other races (but not underpowered, either).

Regarding Touch of Elune, we're making all secondary stats useful to everyone (aside from Spirit for non-healers and Bonus Armor for non-tanks), and more closely balancing their value. As others have pointed out, there are no more haste breakpoints, so this doesn’t imply any gear changes should be made based on time of day.

Additionally, we do still want there to be some difference and choice between the racial abilities, which does mean that players who want to min/max to that degree may still find more value in another race. We don’t feel the difference, even in a worst case scenario, is going to be large enough that someone who wants to play a Night Elf should feel like they're making the wrong choice, but players who are only interested in what they feel are the best racials for their class or spec will have other race options available.

Unlike the other racials that provide some type of CC-dispel, Every Man For Himself actually replaces a CC-Break PvP trinket; it isn’t in addition to it. So what you gain with EMFH is actually a trinket slot. Thus its power is very much related to what trinkets there are available. We're still determining our plan for PvP trinket itemization, so haven't decided on what to do with EMFH quite yet. It’s quite strong, and we agree that it looks unfair from those patch notes; we just haven't decided what to do with it yet. So, don't take that list as a statement that EMFH won't be changing somehow.

Warlords of Draenor Racial Traits

Originally Posted by Blizzard
(Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We’re planning some changes to racial traits for Warlords of Draenor. We recently posted a Dev Watercooler (Pruning the Garden of War) that dives deeper into the philosophy behind these changes, and now we wanted to give you the full details of what’s coming.

In order to keep racials more in line with one another, we’ve decided to bring down a couple of high outliers, then establish a fair baseline and bring the other racials up to that. We’re accomplishing this by improving old passives, replacing obsolete ones, and adding a few new ones where necessary. Ultimately, our goal is to achieve much better parity among races.

There aren’t any current plans to change Pandaren or Worgen racials.

Blood Elf

Arcane Acuity is a new racial passive ability that increases Critical Strike chance by 1%.

Arcane Torrent now restores 20 Runic Power for Death Knights (up from 15 Runic Power), 1 Holy Power for Paladins, or 3% of Mana for Mage, Priest, Warlocks (up from 2% of Mana). Other aspects of the ability remain unchanged.

Draenei

Heroic Presence has been redesigned. It no longer increases Hit by 1%, and instead increases Strength, Agility, and Intellect, scaling with character level.

Gift of the Naaru now heals for the same amount over 5 seconds (down from 15 seconds).

Dwarf

Crack Shot has been removed (was 1% Expertise with ranged weapons).

Mace Specialization (was 1% Expertise with maces) has been replaced with Might of the Mountain.

Might of the Mountain is a new racial passive ability that increases Critical Strike bonus damage and healing dealt by 2%.

Stoneform now also removes magic and curse effects in addition to poison, disease, and bleed effects, along with reducing damage taken by 10% for 8 seconds. It remains unusable while CC'd.

Gnome

Expansive Mind now increases maximum Mana, Energy, Rage, and Runic Power by 5% instead of only increasing maximum Mana.

Escape Artist’s cooldown has been reduced to 1 minute (down from 1.5 minutes).

Shortblade Specialization (was 1% Expertise with one-handed swords and daggers) has been replaced with Nimble Fingers.

Nimble Fingers is a new racial passive ability that increases Haste by 1%.

Goblin

Time is Money now grants a 1% increase to Haste (up from only attack speed and spell haste).

Human

Mace Specialization has been removed (was 1% Expertise with maces).

Sword Specialization has been removed (was 1% Expertise with swords).

The Human Spirit has been redesigned. It no longer increases Spirit by 3%, and instead now increases two secondary stats by an amount scaling with character level. You can choose which two secondary stats it increases. This has not yet been implemented.

Night Elf

Quickness now also increases movement speed by 2% in addition to increasing Dodge chance by 2%.

Touch of Elune is a new passive ability which increases Haste by 1% at night, and Critical Strike Chance by 1% during the day.

Orc

Axe Specialization has been removed (was 1% Expertise with axes).

Hardiness now reduces the duration of Stun effects by 10% (down from 15%).

Tauren

Brawn is a new racial passive ability that increases Critical Strike bonus damage and healing done by 2%.

Endurance now increases Stamina by an amount scaling with character level, instead of increasing Base Health by 5%.

In approximately one week (no sooner than March 10), the Mists of Pandaria Digital Deluxe edition will be earning a bit of much-deserved rest in the Blizzard Archive. If you’ve been thinking about upgrading your standard edition for the in-game extras or contemplating coming back to the game to check out the latest content, you might want to consider snagging the Digital Deluxe Edition now before it heads into the vaults.

If you already own the standard edition of Mists of Pandaria and are interested in upgrading, you can head over to your account management page to do so now. The Digital Deluxe edition might come back out of the archive in the future, but even the jinyu waterspeakers don’t know if or when.

The Digital Deluxe edition of Mists of Pandaria includes the Imperial Quilen Mount, the Lucky Quilen Cub pet, a Mists of Pandaria–themed Diablo III banner sigil and accent, and Horde- and Alliance-themed StarCraft II portraits. Learn more about the Digital Deluxe Edition here.

Ouch, Blizzard is still beating on WotF with the nerf bat. Also, I guess that Arcane Torrent will still give +15 rage and +15 energy for warrior and rogue, respectively, since it isn't specifically mentioned...?
Edit: Oops, and +15 focus for hunters. >_< Sorry, TenkoTAiLS.

do u really play trolls and orcs because of racials? noway! its because charisma and mojo! (wtb new troll models)

WORD.

The unofficial -- but most valuable -- troll racial is simply "Awesomeness."

Loves me some trolls.

Originally Posted by Derkenstein

Just do away with racials completely. Seriously, we don't need them.

I understand the motivation to do this, and I kinda agree with Blizzard's hindsight review that they might have just skipped on racials from the start had they known what trouble they'd be, but since they are in now, they should stay that way.

Other than the stat boosts, many of them are utility or fun or flavour type things that aren't particular harmful to the game, but probably are things players enjoy or appreciate. Think Diplomacy, Shadowmeld, Bouncy or Rocket Jump or Wisp. Players absolutely would miss those, and they're not gamebreaking for them to continue to exist. Some players might pick a race because one sounds more appealing than another, but it's unlikely to result in pressure on players to reroll later when min/maxing or whatever.

And the DPS boosts, while they're not balanced now, have the potential to be fairly equal if Blizzard maths them right, so I think removing those is still inferior to just making them worth similar values across the board, with the unavoidable minor value variations between classes/specs.

So the only real problematic racials at the end of the day to me are ones like EMFH, WotF, etc. We can remove those kinds to even things up without throwing the whole concept of racials out the window.

I give up on this game. Really, a nerf to Will of the Forsaken while Every Man for Himself is untouched? REALLY?

I get Berserking needed to be nerfed. I get that a lot of Alliance races needed better racials. But fucking REALLY? You give Humans a better version of the Undead racial, and then you NERF THE UNDEAD RACIAL TO HIGH HELL and leave the BETTER VERSION alone?

"The Digital Deluxe edition might come back out of the archive in the future, but even the jinyu waterspeakers don’t know if or when."

Why don't they just remove it without the hope of it coming back. Pretty lame and sounds like a huge money grab

Well, cause sooner or later they gonna put all...and I mean ALL...that stuff back on the store(or black market). WoW is not meant to last forever...and it will would be smart to squeeze the last money out of it once the end is near.

"The Digital Deluxe edition might come back out of the archive in the future, but even the jinyu waterspeakers don’t know if or when."

Why don't they just remove it without the hope of it coming back. Pretty lame and sounds like a huge money grab

People are forgetting that they're taking this down so they can put the WoD Digital Deluxe up. Apparently their website can't handle more than one of those promotions at a time (probably doesn't know how to back upgrade).

It'll be funny when you hear about some way to level insanely fast the first week of WoD and the crushing feeling when the person says "Have to be troll, it's some beast grinding thing, super fast spawn".

Eh.. I wouldn't think that all of the racial changes are going to be that big of a deal in the long run.
Human racial will always be OP in pvp due to it being a free trinket, but everything else is only going to matter for the super elitist minmaxing people.
Seriously guys, just play the race you like and don't worry about the racial... >_>

People are forgetting that they're taking this down so they can put the WoD Digital Deluxe up. Apparently their website can't handle more than one of those promotions at a time (probably doesn't know how to back upgrade).

That's really unlikely. They're doing it to increase the relative value of the Digital Deluxe Editions by making their availability limited, like the Collector's Editions.

seriously, what is up with the night elf racial? A 2% movement increase? Wow, I can totally feel the difference (sarcasm). At least make it 10% or something. No need to insult us night elves -.- And for the dps who can't really benefit from the lousy dodge, at least give us something we can use...

seriously, what is up with the night elf racial? A 2% movement increase? Wow, I can totally feel the difference (sarcasm). At least make it 10% or something. No need to insult us night elves -.- And for the dps who can't really benefit from the lousy dodge, at least give us something we can use...

10% would be INSANE for an in and out combat effect. 2% is fine. It's enough so that you'll eventually be able to catch up with other players in PvP instead of JUUUST being an inch out of range to charge them. If you played any MOBAs, think of those characters with movement speed passives who are slightly faster than other characters. Their MS passives never exceed more than like 3% bonus movement speed.

I've been wanting to grab the MoP DCE for a while now but haven't felt the need to do it anytime soon. $20 for a mount and pet is a good deal as the mounts themselves are usually 25 alone plus 10 for a pet store pet. Now I'm wondering if I get it now or wait and hope they have a sale sometime. I can see them bringing it back at $15 for a limited time only.

So Arcane Torrent restores runic power, holy power and mana but not energy or chi? Did they forget to include monks and energy based specs?
WOTF receives a massive nerf but EMFH remains unchanged? I don't get it.
Touch of Elune seems silly. Are day and night cycles going to make a bigger impact in WoD?